I sat down with Julia Myers, a pharmacist-turned-investor who rebuilt both income and identity after a sudden retinal detachment changed everything. In this conversation, Julia walks through how she used short-term rentals (and smart depreciation strategy) to solve a tax problem, why aligning to a clear “why” beats shiny-object investing, and how her family’s money values—generosity, discernment, and a written “family constitution”—create real freedom for the next generation. If you want a candid, actionable look at wealth, parenting, and purpose, you’ll love this one.
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Hello everyone and welcome back. I’m so excited today to have with me Miss Julia Myers. Thanks for being here.
Thank you so much, and I am so excited to be here as well.
Get ready guys, because Julia’s gonna have practical insights that are gonna help you build wealth and freedom through real estate. Now Julia has a really cool story, but let’s start at the beginning with where did real estate investing, where did that happen for you and how does that fit into your story?
Great question and my journey, like many people in real estate, is not linear. And my journey actually didn’t start until I was almost 40 years old. So I grew up in a very traditional background. I grew up with a very traditional, you will work for someone else, you will get a job, you’ll work at the same company until you’re 65 and then you retire. And when I was suddenly faced with not being able to have a traditional job anymore, and I was kind of doing some recovery from some unexpected medical procedures, the only thing I could do was listen to podcasts. And what I did is I actually found the Bigger Pockets podcast and I found the White Coat Investor podcast and got curious and said, wait a minute, there’s gotta be something here that if people in the healthcare profession, as well as normal, common, everyday people are doing real estate, I’ve always heard about it. Let’s learn about it, let’s get curious. So I spent six months just taking it all in and learning about all the different types of real estate, all the tools, all the ways real estate can serve you. And then we took action.
Yes, so I grew up always wanting to help people and I did that by going to pharmacy school. So I got a white coat and jumped right into I want to make a great income. I want to be flexible and serve my family and I want to have a doctor in front of my name and I want to do it before I’m 22. And so I did. So I was a box checker and very quickly went from the for-profit corporate world in a traditional retail pharmacy setting to an academic medical center to leading a team for all things outside the walls of a hospital. And then one day when I was at work, I blinked a few times and I couldn’t see my screen anymore. And what happened was I heard this little voice in my head, you’ve seen the commercials, right? If you experience sudden changes in vision or loss of vision, call your doctor right away. So that little birdie in my ear was like, I think you should do that.
So I called one of my physicians one floor up from where I worked and said, hey, these are my symptoms. He’s like, come on in. Two hours later, I was being admitted to outpatient surgery for a retinal detachment, spontaneous retinal detachment. Normally that’s a pretty sweet two or three weeks off work. You come back, everything’s fine. Well, mine was really complicated and I was not really ever able to go back to work. So five surgeries later, not able to restore my vision, I was really faced with kind of this juxtaposition of everything I’ve always had was in my ability and my identity as a pharmacist to now, how am I gonna navigate through life with one good eye? And legally, you can drive with one good eye. You do not want to count medications or be exact in any way, shape or form for fine details with one eye.
That led me to really saying, what do I want to do? What’s this next act? What’s this way that I can replace my six figure income that I need to do quickly? And that’s what tuned me in to listening about real estate and hearing about all the different benefits and all the different approaches to real estate.
Wow, and that’s such a big shift. I mean, that’s not just an income shift, that’s an identity shift. That’s a big change that you went through. So I’m glad that real estate was there to help you along the way, because I’m sure it helped you not only with the income piece, but the identity piece as well. So what did it look like for you getting into real estate investing? What did you choose kind of as your strategy or path?
For us, started both my husband and I, I’m an early adopter and he is a very specific analytical arranger. So we had to get past the idea that real estate’s cool and get into the numbers and make sure that we had a really sound plan and a really sound why. I didn’t do it because I wanted to be a landlord. I didn’t do it because I wanted to be a super host. I did it because I learned about the benefits of depreciation and tax savings and said, if I am losing my six figure income, we still have W-2 problems. We are paying more than six figures in taxes every year federally. How do I maybe work on the other side of the equation? How do I maybe not generate more revenue, but at the end of the day, how do I keep more of what we’ve earned? And we did that through short-term rentals, we specifically identified a property that was a heavy beach market.
So we’re invested in the Outer Banks. And the funny, interesting thing is we did not pick a beachfront property. In the numbers, a beachfront property would have rented better and been more occupied and commanded higher rates. But again, when you go back to your why tax savings, beachfront properties have a really high land value. You can’t depreciate land value. So we actually chose one row off of the beach. And if you’re familiar with the Outer Banks, we’re between the beach roads, not on the beach, because the land value was half of what it was one block over. So for the same purchase price, we were actually able to depreciate using bonus depreciation and a cost seg enough that it made sense.
So we took the depreciation. Twelve weeks of renting covered twelve months of mortgage. So it was about a breakeven. And that was year one. And I looked at my husband and he looked at me and he’s like, we’re having to do this again, aren’t we? I said, we are. And that was that. So we are three properties in three years in. We’ve pivoted a little bit, but that’s just because the numbers don’t always make sense. And if our why is tax savings, let’s do it to make sure that we get, we’re answering our problem and our solution. We don’t want to do real estate just because everybody else does it. We want to do it in the sense of what does freedom mean to us.
What I am like singing inside about that you’re sharing here is that importance of figuring out your why, because there are so many reasons that people can invest in real estate and they’re all valid and they all have a matching strategy. The challenge is people are just like, I want to get into real estate investing. They have this very vague of like, want to make more money. And the trouble is that’s when you get into shiny object syndrome and everything else versus if you know, you’re very crystal clear why super zoned in to your specific situation from the beginning. It really helps you make the right moves and not get distracted by shiny object syndrome. So like, I’m so happy that you’re sharing all of this. It’s so good.
And I will also add the more you do something the more you learn and just because you’re maybe talented at it or successful box-checking may or may not be that alignment with your true identity and so your one we bought the beach house and then we bought another property in Raleigh, North Carolina. So my husband’s a huge Tar Heel so one of our other backup whys was if something turns in the market or something turns in our financial situation, is this a place we’d want to live? So some people are very particular on their buy box. That was for us part of our buy box. And in year two, I was not able to return to work at any full-time capacity. So I was able to get the documentation in and qualify for reps real estate professional status, and then was able to kind of balance between a short-term and medium-term strategy.
And then after that property it was kind of I could scale a team I could build people to help me run these or I could just pause and say what really lights me up have I achieved my goal of having these tax savings yes and there’s still something wrestling within me and what was wrestling within me was I’m building this real estate I don’t want to call it an empire because it was two properties my kids were watching my kids saw the beach house. My kids saw, we have three houses, we have four houses. And those were some of the dinner table conversations that really piqued my interest and started pulling at my mama heartstrings to say, what are we all doing this for? Is this so that we have more houses? No. Is this so that we save on taxes? Well, sort of. But at the end of the day, that root question kind of came up of, my daughter looked at me like, why do we buy houses? And it was just something I had to sit with. And like, okay, now we’re getting somewhere. Now we’re getting into something that really starts to light me up.
And so that fed into what you’re doing now, helping other people with money mindset. Do you want to share kind of that path and that evolution?
Yes, so I found success with real estate and often people will ask you to share your story. So I shared my story at a conference called the White Coat Investor Conference and when I was speaking there were so many people that came up to me afterwards that had questions about nothing to do with real estate. It was, we really liked how you talked about how your family was involved in these decisions. We really liked how you talked about how your kids know that there’s a no screen that the dinner table rule, except if you have an Airbnb guest. Then, you know, so that was what stood out from their presentation. I loved speaking, even though that maybe I couldn’t see in the same way that I could before with that visual accuracy. My brain works great. My voice, obviously, I love storytelling. It was this aha moment of, wonder if I could make this something that I bring to the world. And this turns out to be rewriting the narrative that generational wealth is what we want our kids to have. I want to rewrite it and say wisdom is what we want our kids to have, generational wisdom. I want them to know how to manage it, why we manage it, what it’s for and how to do good with it. And that was kind of the genesis was being able to share the real estate story that then became, it’s so much bigger than that. It’s all about the values and real estate just became that vehicle or the avenue that started talking about all these fun conversations. And yes, I think talking about money is fun.
Well, and it’s such a real, pressing issue for people who have had success in the real estate space and their children are going to grow up without the same maybe character building financial struggles that they had growing up and they worry like, how do I raise amazing children? How do I raise children who work hard? How? And so I think that’s a lot of what you would address. Yes?
Yes, exactly, and trying to identify both with the art and the science. So as a very heavy statistical trained researcher, I am fascinated by the differences in generations. I am fascinated in what we believe about money, what we believe about values and hard work. And what I’ve uncovered is really there’s four influences that kind of shape our money story and everything from the generation you’re born in, the culture you were raised in. So think those things that slowly evolve over time, but not very quickly. Social influences are the third. So think mom jeans were out of style and now they’re back. That’s social. Think Bitcoin and Robinhood trading. Those are the very social, quick, trendy things. And then most importantly, the data says how your family talked about money, exposed you to money, absolutely is the strongest influence when it comes to what you believe.
And so when you’re able to identify that yes, your background is different, that’s a good thing, but you also can’t justify or explain, well, I never learned about money growing up, or I never learned about real estate, or I never dot dot dot whatever it was. Today’s the day you get to unlearn that narrative and say, today’s the day I get to choose how I’m gonna pass it on, how I’m going to identify what matters.
So practically, let me give you one practical example. It’s back to school time for us in the United States. Parents are packing the backpacks. We like have it all arranged and we have all the pencils and all the markers and all the supplies all properly buttoned, labeled and organized. And then the kids carry these backpacks. Sometimes they’re heavy. Sometimes they’re lopsided. Sometimes there are things in there that don’t serve the kids.
And so when we look back at our journey as being children, right, and having childhood, you couldn’t affect your circumstance. Your backpack was what you got. You opened your lunchbox, it was whatever your parents packed you. Well, now we get to identify what are those things that maybe we’re still carrying in our adult backpacks that don’t serve us anymore? Is it the belief that you have to ask your dad for money, not your mom? Is it the narrative that said 1972 was the first year you could get a mortgage without your spouse as a female? Or a bank account without a spouse? So generationally, culturally, we have all these things that maybe don’t serve us anymore.
And when we start to move forward and say, we absolutely can open doors for our daughters, for our sons, we can talk about college as maybe optional when you have all these jobs that aren’t even created yet because of AI. And so as we unpack this backpack and start to repack it for ourselves, it allows us to get clear on what freedom looks like. You don’t have to carry that big heavy backpack anymore, and there are so many different things that you can put in it, but you get to decide is kind of that key piece. And then you, as the strongest influence, now pass it on to your kids.
I love that because I think, you know, they’ve shown so often that one of the key difference makers in how successful someone can be is if they have the internal locus of control, right? If they believe that they can change things, right? I think of it often along the lines of extreme ownership, right? Are you in control and can you control the outcome? And so that’s what you’re really promoting people to do in that financial money mindset piece is not just taking how they were raised, but actually affecting it. Like I think of as someone who travels all the time. I think of those families that always go to the same place every year. And why do they do it? Because that’s where they went as kids, right? And so maybe mom was raised going to Lake Michigan, so she takes her kids to Lake Michigan, but maybe she doesn’t really like Lake Michigan. Maybe that is not like the peak place for her, but she does it just because it’s what she knows and how she was raised. And it makes me sad when I see things like that, because I’m like, Lake Michigan’s your jam, great. It’s just that so often, people are doing it just because it’s how they were raised and it’s what their mindset is, and they don’t realize that there could be something better, that’s a better fit for them and what they like and their needs out there.
I could not agree more. And one of the guiding things for us as a family that has really changed how we make those decisions, because as kids, everything’s made for you, right? Or you think that you have choice A and choice B. Now that you’re adults, what is that missing skill? It’s discernment. It’s practicing. How do you say yes to something and get the consequences? How do you say no to something?
And so for us, we got really clear on what do we value as a family? We put it into writing. We created a family constitution. And then when we are making choices, both with money, with time, with attention, the three things that are the most valuable resources to us, we then can say, yes, this is in service of one of our three family values. Or we can say, no, that’s not in service of. So instead of the money scripts that maybe you heard growing up of we can’t afford that or we could never not go back to that same vacation space, well, you can. Your locus of control, as long as you’re able to then bring other people into that conversation. So for us, love, learning, and experiences. And so we say yes to those things that are love, not just in an emotional or intimate way, but in a serving and a giving in a generous way. So that’s how we say yes to things, and that’s how we say no to things.
And so I would encourage you to think through maybe in your own life, like I know of your values inherently include freedom and travel and some of those core things, but how would that help you kind of shape or kind of face what are those locuses of control that you guys prioritize as a family and how does that show up as freedom for you?
Right, well, and I think of we just had a flight cancellation today for December and it kind of gave us the opportunity to revisit what we had planned and really make sure like, could we make a plan that’s more in alignment with our values? And so we actually changed our plans. Family is obviously one of my top priorities, right? We homeschool the kids, like we are family five traveling all the time. So we made a change to our plans where we’re actually something we’d learned about since we’d made our original plans. Like we learned about this place in Japan where they do this penguin walk up in Hokkaido, like by Sapporo, the northernmost province, this zoo, when it’s snowy, the penguins come out and do like a little penguin parade.
My youngest loves penguins. And so we were able to pivot our plans instead of doing what we had planned before, which would have been good. It would have been great. Instead, like, I don’t want to say one of our core values is penguins, but sometimes it is. So we were able to pivot and instead do something that’s really going to be like a core memory for our kids. Like fingers crossed it’s snowy while we’re there and it happens. But worst case, we’re still visiting a really cool zoo with a bunch of penguins, right? And so we were able to kind of pivot and yes, make that choice with, is this in alignment with our family and our values? So I love how you’re promoting that.
Now, what I’d love for you to go into, I think a lot of people struggle with and I think it’s freeing. I think I’ve learned this lesson and I love it. I think no is a complete sentence. And yet a lot of people struggle with saying no to everything that isn’t in alignment with their values. It isn’t like a heck yes, that’s my yes. So what wisdom would you give people who are listening to this and they’re like, okay, I love that idea. And yet I just have so much on my plate and I don’t know how to say no to some things.
I love the word no until they’re like three or four years old. And what I want to teach them isn’t the fact that that’s the answer. And sometimes it is. I have teenagers, let me tell you. Sometimes it’s just no. What I also find is being able to make decisions kind of independently. And how do you make decisions? It’s collecting information and collecting data. So I always like to say no because and not no because we can’t afford it or no because we’re already triple booked and I’m overwhelmed. Instead of a no, sometimes it’s we’re saying no so that we can say yes to this or we’re saying no because we’re stretched in three different directions and no, you can’t all three play travel sports when there’s two of us and one weekend. And so being real, I think with kids is really important. They want to be treated like adults. They want to be treated older than they are. And so sometimes that means we’ve got to give them that autonomy or that responsibility and then also have the consequences to sit with.
What are ways that they can fail in safe ways? So being able to kind of offset some of that adult responsibility or all the things on our plate. For example, our travels, whenever we go somewhere as a family, everybody knows they get a day to plan. And age appropriate wise, they’re responsible not just for like, I want to go to this amusement park, but what are the logistics of the travel? What are the costs of the tickets? Where are we gonna eat? How are we gonna get there? What’s the local currency? They’re involved in those decision-making so that they see adulting not just as the fun someday when I’m free and I get to do whatever I want, but the maturity in that responsibility that says saying no and having boundaries is just as important as saying yes, even if it’s not a clear heck yes, and even if it’s not a clear heck no.
So there’s a spectrum there. I also like to look at it through the lens of, okay, that matches our values. The next lens is, who says that that’s what I’m supposed to do? Where are these influences coming from? You’re always gonna feel pressure. When we were in high school, we said, can’t wait for college when I can sleep. And when we were in college, we’re like, I can’t wait till I’m married and I have a real job and a real income. And now that you’re here, there’s always a someday and accepting the fact that there will always be pressure. But when it comes from the outside and it’s out of comparison or it’s out of scarcity or it’s out of like, that’s what everybody else is doing is a summer in Italy. So we should do a summer in Italy. Those are always going to leave you feeling more empty. And that is where that pressure feels negative.
But when you’re feeling that pressure to kind of say, I want to grow, I want to change, I want to create, or I want to consume out of an abundant place, now it feels like purpose. Now you’re taking that pressure. And so seeing the pressure or the to-do list, what feels purposeful versus what feels like pressure in a negative way. And when you’re able to kind of look at that gradient and say nothing will ever fit clearly into one box of clear yes or clear no, practice along the way and bring your kids along for those lessons. Bring your kids along for here’s why we did this and here’s what we learned. Or here’s something out of our control and here’s how we’re reacting.
Those are the skills we want to be passing on to me. That’s the freedom. That helps me sleep better at night knowing that if they inherit the farm tomorrow or just find my debit card, I’m not worried that they’re winning the lottery. I am now proud that they’re not just provided for, but they’re prepared for adulting individually in age-appropriate ways.
Right. They’ve practiced that responsibility. They’ve had natural consequences in some situations and they’re understanding the relationship between values and finances or money as a way to live your values along with time and other things. So, love all of that.
We talk about we could buy another house and here’s what that would be saying yes to and then here’s what that would be saying no to and having those not be taboo topics, having those be like dinner table topics around how we run a business or how we run real estate or why we stay in jobs or why we do this or that. Those are the conversations I think that maybe we’re missing as parents when we are in the greatest of intentions. I want to make it better for them than what I had growing up. I want to honor that feeling and say, what better looks like is relative. You can make it better. Wait, hold on. They have screens in their pockets, they have computers everywhere, they have like all the things, it’s already better. Parents, that is not your job to make it better for them. Your job is to raise them on the values that they learn from the foundation at home. Because delegated parenting is really delegating your legacy. There’s roles for church ministers, there’s roles for school. School teaches them about SEX and other things too, but really where do the values come from?
We talk about money, it’s not taboo, the values come from home. And so I hope that you feel empowered to take those values, build your belief backpack, create your family constitution so that you can then have the confidence that the kids are going to be better than you were or better than what you had because you gave them what you didn’t, which is discernment.
I think it’s something you’ve kind of, a lot of the words you said there makes me think of, we can say, we want them to have a better life, we want them to have a better situation. Really, truly, I think maybe instead, we want them to maybe be better people, not necessarily in a better situation, but maybe better prepared to handle whatever situation they may find themselves in.
Yes, and you know with multiple kids, it’s not just what we want for them because they will very clearly take different paths of uniqueness. And so one of my favorite tips that I like to give is teaching generosity is really the antidote to entitlement. And the spin on that though is we always hear give 10% or be charitable. I’m gonna make it super practical. And I will share that the charities that I’m interested in are not always what my kids are interested in. And when they get skin in the game and when they get interested in like what I do matters, that is where the magic happens. So for us, one of our values is 10% is given away, but it is not to my charity. It’s to their charity of choice. So we don’t get too in the weeds, but if it’s more than $10 birthday money, earnings, whatever that they get, they find.
My kid is lucky. He found a $10 bill one time on a vacation trip. I’m like, what are you gonna do with it? He’s like, I have to break it so I can give my $1 away. But anyway, being grounded in with whatever little you have right now, it’s not yours. It’s like the idea of money isn’t so that you have more and so that you consume it all. It’s so that you’re coming from a place of abundance that the more you have, the more you can give. And they are more motivated when it is all about where they want to give it to.
And I will disrupt the myth that they cannot give it to each other because they are not charity for each other. And so then that’s a whole new conversation of what is a charity? What is somebody that’s in need versus I want a new Pokémon pack? Right? So if we can maybe make that super practical of what we can do right now, ask your kids: If you had to give it away, where would you give it to and why? And the answers might surprise you because the kids are so different and then they’re going to pick different career paths. They’re going to pick non-traditional routes. They’re going to do things. Kids these days, let me tell you, you know, it’s just, it’s a gift, but then at the same time, our job is to launch them healthy from the nest.
Yes, there’s a lot of great things to say there and I love how you caveat they can’t give it to each other because I could totally see my kids making some arrangement. I’m gonna give you my money. We’re gonna have enough to buy a Pokémon pack and then you’re gonna give me a few cards from the Pokémon pack and we’re all gonna get the points because we were all giving but we’re all just ending up with Pokémon cards.
Yes, can you tell we’ve done this a few times? I say experiences will teach you. And so whether it’s real estate, whether it’s business, whether it’s freedom, try things on and you can almost always close a different door. Open a new one, close another one. And sometimes when your doors are literally shut, like this vision went like this, like a curtain just gone. Sometimes you can’t control it and then that internal locus of control says, okay, what can I control? I can choose where I focus. I can choose to focus on everything I’ve lost, what’s blurry, what’s frustrating, or you can say, I can choose to focus on what I’ve gained. And it’s a whole new perspective that maybe I wouldn’t have had prior to.
Exactly. Love it. Well, this has been amazing, and it is time for our closing questions. So let’s get started if you’re ready. All right. First, what is your go-to tool for managing operations with your investment properties?
I am old school QuickBooks. Old school QuickBooks. Because at the end of the day, it’s about dollars and cents and that’s what keeps you in the game.
And so many real estate investors don’t do it because accounting is work and it’s not their natural choice. So I love that. It makes a big difference. Thank you for reminding us of that. Next, what is one piece of advice you’d give to your younger self when you were starting out?
Hi, Younger Self. I would remind you that not everyone’s opinions hold the same weight. Not everyone’s opinions matter. And it’s okay for you to say, wow, that really served me and that was great feedback. And you’re also allowed to say, that is off in left field and doesn’t serve me and that’s okay.
Very, very wise as well. And then finally, what is a book that has been transformational in your investing journey?
I am a big podcast listener and audiobook listener. And so for me, I really liked the White Coat Investor Guide to Real Estate. So it was a very basic, just straightforward outline of if you’re considering real estate and you want to get started and you have a W-2 and you don’t need anything super creative or please don’t quit your nine to five. It’s also a very big theme in the book, but yeah, the White Coat Investor’s Guide to Real Estate was my first and my go-to whenever anybody asked me about how do I get started.
Love it. And then, if people would like to follow up and hear more about your story or the, I guess, training and education that you offer, what’s the best way for them to do so?
I have a great place to start. It’s talking about money around the dinner table. It’s a five-day kind of mini email sequence that allows you to sit with conversations that have nothing to do with numbers. Zero numbers. I know we talked QuickBooks, but juliamyers.com/talk — T-A-L-K, four-letter word. We’re gonna use it. juliamyers.com/talk. That will get you into the world of generational wisdom. That will get you into the world of where am I in this journey of passing on not just wealth but wisdom because wealth without wisdom is wasted.
So true. And guys, that link is in the show notes below wherever you’re listening or watching this. So grab it there and go get started on your five-day conversation. Love it. Thank you so much. And thank you to our listeners. Please make sure to like and subscribe wherever you’re listening. And what investor do you know who could benefit from this story? Please take a minute and just shoot this over to them. Text, email, whatever is easiest so that they can hear this story as well. And then join me next week.